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A Working professional but love to write my experiences and share them.Love travelling and explore new places.
Family, travel, food, movies and friends are the most important part of my life.
Would love to make friends who share similar interest.

Posts Tagged ‘Madhya Pradesh’

Jabalpur is the 3rd largest city in Madhya Pradesh. It has beautiful dhuadhar waterfall (Believe me the name says it all) and Bhedaghat.

The beautiful Dhuandhar Falls is located at Bhedaghat 30 km away from Jabalpur.
‘Dhuan’ means smoke. Mist emanating by water falling on hard rock has visuals of smoke, hence it is called Dhuandhar or Smoke Cascade.

Dhuandhar falls is located on the Narmada river.

Marble Rocks, located just a km away from the waterfalls is a must visit. Boating is an amazing experience, especially by the moonlight. Boating facilities are available from November to May. Boating in Narmada is not allowed during monsoon season.

There is a fixed rate by MP Tourism for these boats. They will take INR 700-900 based on the distance they cover. never fall in to trap of going more distance and paying extra buck. People always try to extract maximum money.

Jabalpur is a 3rd tier city with restaurants, malls and multiplexes. You can have everything which a modern man requires.

How to Reach Jabalpur by Air

Jabalpur Dumna Airport, located around 20 km away from the main city centre, connects the city with rest of the country by air.

How to Reach Jabalpur by Road

Jabalpur is connected to major Indian cities like Nagpur, Indore, Bhopal, Pune, Aurangabad, Kanha and Bandhavgarh by regular interstate bus service.

How to Reach Jabalpur by Rail
Jabalpur Railway Station lies on Mumbai-Howrah-via Allahabad main line. Served by the Western Central Railways, Jabalpur Railway Station is an important rail junction of the state as it connects Jabalpur to major Indian cities like Delhi, Nagpur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Patna, Bhopal and Lucknow.

Like this:

We had planned for the trip way back which is usually not my style but definitely a place of interest for me since not so long ago. I use to hear stories from people that Khajuraho is famous for sculptures that depict various sexual positions. There are lots of them. The whole temple is full of them and what not. It’s more or less related to Kamasutra (Ancient Hindu text which is considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior).

I had heard about Kamasutra and its various techniques and positions, mostly unusual and impossible to attempt but are still famous. I wonder how many people do it exactly the way it is mentioned in the books.

Anyway I am not talking about sexual positions here as I am not an expert on this but certainly the visit to Khajuraho has made me clear that it’s not only about the above mentioned things. It’s about something different, which I realized when I was there few days ago. It’s about love, life, passion and religion.

Let me brief about the place first,

Khajuraho is a small village situated along a lake in Madhya Pradesh (heart of central India). Its spread over an area of 21 sq kms and is the most frequently visited monument after “Taj Mahal” in India. Its well known for Indo-Aryan architecture. The temples were built between the 9th and 11th centuries by the warrior kings of Chandela Dynasty. It is believed that only 25 temples still remains and can be seen out of 85 ones in this place.

By the 16th century, Khajuraho was almost lost in the history and have lost importance, turning out to be a place which is not visible in the map. Not until 1838 when Captain T.S. Burt rediscovered the temples. He was traveling on an official duty and made a slight change in his itinerary to visit the place based on the inputs from a local who was with him. He later recorded that he has spotted the finest number of temples situated in one place and all are within a small distance to each other.

The sculptures and carvings of the temples depict humans, human bodies, and the changes that occur in bodies, as well as facts of life. Approx 10% of the sculptures contain sexual themes. These are sexual activities between people.

Though the erotic sculptures are of Khajuraho are the main attraction to a visitor at the same time these sculptures has given Khajuraho too much publicity and popularity and hence the place has gained a big place in the world map.

I enquired about the erotic sculptures and got few answers which are really interesting.

1) Gods are responsible for natural calamities and if at all gods come to this place they will go back immediately after looking at these erotic sculptures. They wont be able to tolerate these nuisance.

2) These erotic sculptures are put in for those people who are not sincere guys. If you are a sincere guy these erotic sculptures won’t affect you. If you are not sincere than you will be lost in these sculptures and will have to come back again with much sincerity which will not affect you to these sculptures.

According to some books, these erotic sculptures came in to existence when Buddhist devotees were required to pass this interesting test to reach the stage of spiritualism. They were put in front of these kind of erotic sculptures to test their ability to resist themselves and come out without any kind of physical emotion.

There are 3 groups of temples — Western, Eastern, and Southern. The main temples are in the Western group, which features the magnificent Mahadeo Temple. The Eastern Group contains a number of exquisitely sculptured Jain temples. There are only two temples in the Southern group.

We started our journey from my base location “Bilaspur” for a place called Maihar. It’s a religious place for Hindu’s. We reached there in the morning and left the place by afternoon for Khajuraho which was 164 kms from our location. There was a beautiful forest range in between which we crossed at night, the place was scary as the forest was dense and the valley was full of sharp and steep turns. Spotted few deer and some more animals in between, which made our journey more interesting and our enthusiasm went straight upwards. Thankfully the roads were good and we reached around 7 pm. After crossing lots of small villages I thought Khajuraho is also a small village (a village with a population of 8000 people) and has only few temples to offer and I really mean it as I was not expecting much. I had seen lots and lots of temples recently and was not really looking forward for another bunch of temples.

We reached and attended the light and sound show which is held at the temple premises at night. It was a cold, dark and windy night but enjoyed the lights focusing on the temples based on the ruler’s timelines which I didn’t keen to learn but the ambience was nice and worth watching.

Went straight to bed but before that stalked by the agents of different hotels and guides. It’s always advisable to use audio guides which are available at the ticket counter in Khajuraho.

Next Morning we woke up to a cold December morning and straight away went to the temples arena after getting ready. When I entered the place I was awestruck and looked all around and found myself as if I am in heavenly place. There were beautiful, huge and architectural brilliant piece of monuments.

We went on from one temple to another and were lost for few hours in the sculptures and carvings as well the architecture of temples. Everything was so very perfect and we loved the place as it’s well maintained and has everything tourists require.

Khajuraho Festivals

A week long classical dance festival is held in Khajuraho temple complex each year in February and March. There are performers and dance groups from all over India putting up a show on various classical styles of Indian dance, such as Kathak, Bharat Natyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Manipuri and Kathakali. A large arts and crafts fair is also held during the festival. There is a light and sound show every day in English and Hindi which is worth watching.

How to Reach Khajuraho

By Bus

Khajuraho from Jhansi are connected by buses but do confirm timings and also verify bus conditions. The local buses are crowded and take about 5-6 hrs to reach Khajuraho. One can also rent a car from Jhansi or Satna, which will roughly cost you up to Rs. 2000/- one way. A bus ticket costs approximately Rs. 100/- one way.

By Train

Jhansi (175 km) is well connected to Delhi by Bhopal Shatabdi . Khajuraho has recently got a new railway station and one can take a direct train to Khajuraho from Delhi’s Nizamuddin Railway Station that runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday known as Sampark Kranti Express.

By Air

Khajuraho has its own airport and Air India and Jet Airways operates flight from Delhi directly or via Varanasi.